Vespasian Denarius, RIC II, Part 1 (second edition) Vespasian 938

Monetary Context and Imperial Policy

The accession of Vespasian in AD 69 ended the destructive conflicts of the Year of the Four Emperors and left the Roman state with depleted treasury reserves alongside pressing military and administrative obligations. The Flavian restoration demanded a massive output of silver denarii to fund legionary pay, veterans' discharge bounties, civil bureaucracy, and monumental rebuilding programs in Rome, including the Colosseum and the Temple of Peace. Under Vespasian, silver coinage retained the metallurgical parameters established by Nero's monetary reform of AD 64, maintaining a nominal weight standard of approximately 3.41 grams (equivalent to 1/96th of a Roman pound) and an alloy fineness hovering around 80 to 82 percent silver, with the remainder composed primarily of copper. Issue 938 was struck in the closing years of Vespasian's decade-long rule, a period characterized by consolidated fiscal stability and structured monetary volume. The denarius formed the backbone of daily high-value transactions, regional tax remittance, and military disbursement throughout the Mediterranean basin and the European frontier garrisons.

Mint Location and Production Mechanics

RIC II, Part 1 (second edition) Vespasian 938 was manufactured exclusively at the principal imperial mint in Rome. In the earlier years of the Flavian principate, supplementary branch mints operated across the western and eastern provinces, such as Lugdunum, Ephesus, and Antioch, to satisfy immediate regional demands. By AD 77 to 78, however, imperial silver denarius production had been thoroughly recentralized in Rome. Production at the urban mint utilized manual striking techniques where cast planchets of standardized silver alloy were heated to enhance malleability, placed between hand-engraved bronze or iron dies, and struck with heavy hammer blows. Dies were cut by professional celators operating within organized workshop divisions (officinae). While the vast majority of obverse dies produced by the Rome mint rendered the emperor's portrait facing right, a smaller, select proportion was executed with the portrait facing left, illustrating the deliberate operational variety permitted within the central mint's ateliers.

Obverse Design and Portraiture

The obverse of this issue features the laureate head of Vespasian facing left. Flavian numismatic portraiture broke sharply with the idealized, youthful classicism of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, opting instead for a mature, veristic style deeply rooted in Roman Republican ancestral portrait traditions. Engravers at Rome depicted Vespasian with his characteristic broad cranium, pronounced brow lines, deeply set eyes, thinning hair, and lined neck, capturing his advanced age and seasoned military demeanor. The laurel wreath (corona triumphalis) encircles his head, with ribbon ties extending downward onto the nape of the neck. The leftward orientation of the portrait provides a key typological distinction that sets catalogue type 938 apart from the much more common right-facing counterpart catalogued as RIC II, Part 1 (second edition) Vespasian 937. Such directional inversions were carefully controlled by mint authorities rather than being products of engraver error.

Reverse Iconography of Mars

The reverse iconography depicts the Roman god Mars standing or advancing toward the left. The deity is shown helmeted and essentially naked, save for a military cloak (paludamentum) wrapped securely around his waist and falling in drapery folds. In his right hand, Mars holds a spear directed obliquely upward, while his left hand supports a military trophy (tropaeum) resting across his left shoulder. The trophy comprises captured enemy armor, including cuirass, greaves, and shields, affixed to a wooden trunk. This representation evokes Mars Ultor (the Avenger) or Mars Victor (the Conqueror), associating the Flavian regime with divine martial virtue, victory in civil and external conflicts, and the preservation of imperial borders. The imagery conveyed an unambiguous message of pacification achieved through supreme military preparedness, designed to reassure soldiers and citizens alike of the regime's protective strength.

Epigraphy and Imperial Titulature

The inscriptions on RIC 938 reflect standard Flavian epigraphic abbreviations and provide precise chronological anchors. The obverse legend reads IMP CAESAR VESPASIANVS AVG, running clockwise along the perimeter of the flan. This string incorporates the permanent military praenomen Imperator (IMP), the dynastic surname CAESAR inherited through the principate, the personal nomen VESPASIANVS, and the sacral title AVGVSTVS (AVG). The reverse inscription consists of the succinct consular formula COS VIII, denoting Vespasian's eighth consulship. By dispensing with expanded honorifics like tribunician numbers or the title Pater Patriae on the reverse field, the legend leaves maximum spatial clarity for the figural representation of Mars. The letterforms are characterized by crisp, serifed Roman capitals typical of the late 70s AD Rome mint engraving style.

Typological Classification and Chronological Placement

In the original 1926 edition of Roman Imperial Coinage Volume II by Harold Mattingly and Edward Sydenham, Flavian typology was categorized under earlier chronological schemata. The comprehensive 2007 revision by Ian Carradice and Ted V. Buttrey reclassified the entire series, assigning number 938 to this specific silver denarius featuring the left-facing bust and the COS VIII reverse with Mars. Because Vespasian entered his eighth consulship on January 1, AD 77, and assumed his ninth consulship on January 1, AD 79, this issue is securely dated to the production window of AD 77 to 78. Within this consular emission, it forms a cohesive pair with RIC 937 (which exhibits the identical reverse design combined with a right-facing portrait) and sits alongside related COS VIII denarius types depicting symbols such as pacing oxen, prow-and-star designs, and seated deities.

Circulation Patterns and Monetary Survival

Once released into circulation from Rome, denarii of Vespasian traveled extensively throughout the empire. Archaeological hoard evidence demonstrates that Flavian silver circulated heavily in the frontier regions of Britannia, the Rhine, and the Danube, where it formed the bulk of military pay, as well as in the Mediterranean heartlands of Italia, Hispania, and Gaul. Because Nero had slightly debased the denarius in AD 64, older pre-reform denarii of superior fineness were gradually hoarded or melted down, leaving post-64 Neronian and Flavian issues to dominate western circulation for decades. Studies of hoards buried during the reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines confirm that late Flavian denarii continued to circulate actively for well over a century, suffering gradual wear until the mass demonetization and recoinage policies under Trajan in the early second century AD gradually removed the most worn specimens from official use.

References

1. Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, Volume II: Vespasian to Domitian. pp. 44-46
2. The Metallurgy of Roman Silver Coinage: From the Reform of Nero to the Reform of Trajan. pp. 200-245
3. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Volume II, Part 1: From AD 69 to AD 96 (Vespasian to Domitian). p. 132, no. 938
4. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC II, Part 1 (second edition) Vespasian 938. ric.2_1(2).ves.938